GOLF

GOLF; In Golf, Integration Is More Than 9-Iron Away

By JAIME DIAZ

Published: August 5, 1991

The sociological shock surrounding last year's P.G.A. Championship at Shoal Creek carried more force than any off-course event in golf's history, but even that impact hasn't shaken the game from its inherently leisurely pace.

As golf has settled back into its own tempo, the true significance of the protests that forced the country club outside Birmingham, Ala., to accept a black member has become difficult to measure. While the sanctuary of privilege that all-white private clubs long enjoyed has come under more critical scrutiny than ever before, minority groups, and particularly black people, are still far outside golf's mainstream.

On the eve of this year's P.G.A. Championship, which begins Thursday at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Ind., the changes made since last year's event are still in the eye of the beholder.

Those who say Shoal Creek irrevocably changed the face of the game point to the way this country's four major golf organizations -- the United States Golf Association, the Professional Golfers' Association of America, the PGA Tour and the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour -- all drafted new policies requiring the private clubs that play host to their tournaments to move decisively toward integrating their memberships.

In addition, the Augusta National Golf Club, the home of the Masters, independently admitted its first black member.

"I think that on balance the golf world has surprised me with how aggressively they have gone after change since Shoal Creek," David Fay, executive director of the U.S.G.A., said recently. "Some might say we are not doing it quick enough, but I think there is proof across the board that important changes are continuing to be made."

Others contend that the only changes brought on by Shoal Creek were forced by financial expediency, and that next to nothing has been done to motivate the true integration of the game at the nearly 6,000 private clubs in the United States that have no intention of holding major professional tournaments. About three quarters of these clubs do not have a black member. Moreover, critics say, golf's leadership has done little to integrate the business and administration of the game.

"There has been a beginning, but I think it has all been token," said the Rev. Joseph Lowery, the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which focused national attention on Shoal Creek by threatening to picket last year's P.G.A. Championship. "What hasn't been done has given affirmation to the critics who said golf's leaders responded only because of economic pressure. There was no moral impetus, no repentance of our sins."

Those sins were symbolized last July in the words of Shoal Creek's founder, Hall Thompson, when he told a Birmingham newspaper reporter that "we don't discriminate in every other area except the blacks." Suddenly, what had been tacitly accepted for generations had been too bluntly stated in too visible an arena to be ignored.

The S.C.L.C.'s subsequent threat to picket the P.G.A. Championship unless Shoal Creek took in a black member led some corporate sponsors to withdraw their advertising from the telecast of the tournament. With its golden egg under siege, golf's leadership responded posthaste.

Louis Willie, a prominent black Birmingham businessman, was admitted as an honorary member at Shoal Creek. The PGA Tour drew up a firm anti-discrimination policy for its host clubs to follow, as did the P.G.A. of America and the U.S.G.A. Although the PGA Tour's policy did not stipulate that every host club had to have minority members, it stipulated that each club had to demonstrate an ongoing commitment to non-exclusionary membership.

"There wasn't any point in kidding around," said Tim Finchem, deputy commissioner of the PGA Tour. "If a club didn't want to take steps, we wanted to know up front because sooner or later it was going to be a black eye for them and for us."

Since then, 11 private clubs have dropped out as hosts of national championship tournaments or tour events rather than adopt more inclusive membership practices. The clubs that withdrew are: Butler National (Centel Western Open), Cypress Point Golf Club (AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am), Old Warson Country Club (Southwestern Bell Senior Classic), Skokie Country Club (Ameritech Senior Open), Amarillo Country Club (Ben Hogan Amarillo Open), the Golf Club of Louisiana (Ben Hogan Baton Rouge Open), St. Louis Country Club (1992 United States Women's Amateur), Chicago Golf Club (1993 Walker Cup), Annandale Golf Club (1993 United States Women's Amateur), Merion Golf Club (1994 Women's Open) and Aronimink Golf Club (1993 P.G.A. Championship).

Conversely, most of the host clubs on the PGA Tour, the Senior PGA Tour and the L.P.G.A. Tour that did not have minority membership at the time of Shoal Creek have since admitted at least one black, most recently the Colonial Country Club, site of the Southwestern Bell Colonial, and Castle Pines Golf Club, site of The International.